Eddie and Dave NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (54)
See it if you want to be entertained by a story of old rockers - Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth. The gender switch is brilliant.
Don't see it if you cannot abide plays where women play men and men play women. Also, if you are sensitive to loud music.
See it if You loved Van Halen & are curious about the group’s history & various comebacks, How bands break up &!whatever happened to David Lee Roth?
Don't see it if You don’t like cross gender casting, not a fan of rock history or music, don’t care about Van Halen or Roth, don’t like absurd comedy Read more
See it if You love rock music & wink at attendant, life craziness that's a part of music icons. Super to see the talented women play these guys!
Don't see it if You hate rock music, and any plays that featured cross-gender portrayals. You truly enjoy established musical theater.
See it if for some silly fun. Will get to know these rockers even if you don't know anything about them. Energetic and extravagant.
Don't see it if you can't surrender to silly. Or can't stand rock. Or can't take gender reversal acting.
See it if Enjoy quirky but well-written and directed plays. Funny yet with some heart.
Don't see it if Wish for more traditional theater. Quirky may not be for everyone.
See it if You want to see a playwright take a chance and hit a homerun!
Don't see it if You are going to try to analyze this with a magnifying glass because you want to see a serious or accurate portrayal of Van Halen’s career Read more
See it if Detailed drag parody (satirical gender role-reversal) of rift between VH bros., and peacock Diamond Dave. Injection of drag Val Bertinelli.
Don't see it if MTV generation demographic-specific.Quiet stadium rock bio. Only samples of 3 songs.Need to ably identify a VJ. Unwanted tufts of body hair. Read more
See it if I thought it was just great fun. The gender switch of having the band members played by females worked well. It was also educational.
Don't see it if If you never loved Rock music
Critic Reviews (18)
“Larky if bloated sketch of a bio-comedy...Based on the original guitarist and lead singer of the chart-topping band Van Halen...The female cast members...appear to be having a high old time finding the testosterone within their characters’ teased hair...Initially, this is pretty funny...Ultimately, the comedy is too blunt and repetitive to sustain the 90 uninterrupted minutes...There is throughout a mind-bending glee in watching women taking on the extravagant guises of hot-dog rock ’n’ rollers.”
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“Staats’s unabashedly goofy rock bioplay...Affection for music and the ridiculous past are the columns on which Staats has built her comedy...The music hews perilously close to Van Halen’s classic bangers...The attempts to take something that feels bootleg and turn it into something...leave the play a little muted. Thankfully, the gender-swapped performances go to 11...This big-hearted show sounds too much like an electric guitar—right before you plug it into the amp.”
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"Staats has written a sincere but simple love letter, a cheerful act of fan fiction that bubbles along enjoyably enough without ever really becoming more than the sum of its parts...The twist...is that the boys...are all embodied by women...At times it’s great fun to watch the women...At other times, the cross-gender gambit leads to easy joke territory...There’s lots of good humor...but...there’s also not much there there...It’s striving for something bigger, but it never quite makes the Jump.”
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“Staats invites her audience into a snow globe filled with glitter and cocaine to recount the heroic journey of the band Van Halen, resulting in 100 minutes that are indeed as magical as they are ridiculous...She straddles the line between Bertolt Brecht and Tennessee Williams, imparting wisdom while navigating the murky waters of memory.
And thanks to the committed performances of this five-person cast, we're willing to go along."
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“Staat’s fun and frisky comedy...Women are scripted to play all the male music stars, a choice that makes the audience think about the role gender plays...Thurber does a great job of providing melodies that suggest classic tunes...But ‘Eddie and Dave’ doesn't appear to be a jukebox musical in the making. Its formidable strength is in the garage band attitude used to tell the age-old tale of how clashing egos can both create art and mess it all up.”
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“Staats' new play may prove a pleasant diversion...Or you can stay home and watch Netflix...The spin Staats and Bordelon put on this story...Is that the men...are all portrayed by women...What's the point? It's a valid question that's only partially answered...which wears out its welcome...Casting women to play these men is...A fresh sensibility that allows us to see those characters in a new light. One just wishes Staats' characters were more interesting that they are in ‘Eddie and Dave’.”
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“A spoofy treatment of rock musical band Van Halen...The switched gender ploy is cute as a Facebook puppy video for a while...But for all of the comedy’s 90 intermissionless minutes it’s not really a barrel of sustained laughs and chuckles...After about 20, maybe even 30 of those 90 minutes, we’ve seen enough of Staats’ guitar miming and Hill’s strutting as the full-of-himself Roth and Salem’s amusing go at femininity.”
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“Staats’s hilarious, unexpectedly touching and altogether delightful reimagining of one of classic rock’s last, best epic rivalries...The gender twist is a clever conceit on a couple of levels; first, it allows...Bordelon and Hill to revel in the hirsute crooner’s diva-like qualities—also emphasized by the scrumptiously over-the-top, divinely tacky costumes...’Eddie and Dave’ is...a requiem for a bygone time, pre-reality TV...And before snark, which is refreshingly absent in this play.”
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